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Wikipedia used to be the "site that everyone could edit". Now it is the site that everyone can edit, so long as everyone is a Wikipedia admin. Everyone ELSE's edits get removed.

One time I created a Wikipedia page for something I considered interesting, which didn't have a page yet. I wrote a detailed page with lots of links and information. It took me at least an hour. I wanted to contribute this small piece of knowledge to the whole, which I understood to be the whole point of Wikipedia. In less than 12 hours, my page had been removed and tagged as not being noteworthy enough for whoever. So I wasted my time trying to share my knowledge. Nowaways, if you want a page to be added, you cannot add it yourself. You have to ASK THAT IT BE ADDED.

Not only that, but edits to existing pages--no matter whether they are of value or not--are almost always reverted.

My time is much better spent sharing my knowledge by answering people's questions on Quora. Wikipedia clearly is not interested in what I have to say.

Oh wait, the RIAA/MPAA doesn't want you to do that. They want you to buy them again. And again. And again. In fact, they go so far as to tell you you are not "allowed" to do that, because you might want to do nefarious things with it.

Keeping your content in the "cloud" makes perfect sense.. if you're the RIAA/MPAA and want to control all access to all media at all times. Makes very little sense to the consumer. The risk isn't worth the convenience in my book.

An anonymous reader writes "Be careful mentioning Dr. Ann De Wees Allen. She's made it clear that she's trademarked her name and using it is 'illegal... without prior written permission.' She even lists out the names of offenders and shows you the cease-and-desist letter she sends them. And, especially don't copy any of the text on her website, because she's using a bit of javascript that will warn you 'Copyright Protect!' if you right click on a link."

I'm a professional graphic designer. I work with an Apple 30" Cinema Display (matte screen). It is quite simply the finest display I have ever used, and I have experience with a wide variety of displays, of diverse quality (Viewsonic to NEC to Dell to LaCie) going back to the early 90s.
When I see those glossy screens lined up in Apple Stores today, or at Best Buys or my campus computer store, I just cannot fathom how anyone gets any work done with their eyes constantly compensating for glare. Yes, the colors may be brighter, but your eyes are working harder to see through glare and the brighter colors are not an equitable tradeoff. But they're energy efficient or some such nonsense, and that makes it ok I guess, right Steve?
The only solution, where matte screens are not available, is to buy a glossy screen and resurface it. For me, glossy screens are simply unacceptable.

A new kind of speed camera that uses satellites to measure average speed over long distances is being tested in Britain. The "Speedspike" system combines plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver to calculate average speed between any two points in the area being monitored. From the article: "Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled 'number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day.' It also referred to the system's 'low cost' and ease of installation." I can't wait to see the episode of MythBusters where they try to avoid getting a speeding ticket from a satellite.

If you think the internet is going to just "forget" who this guy is, and that it won't have any impact on future potential employers of his, you're wrong. Sorry.

The media's attention span is not the point. Popular culture is not the point.

The point is that his name is now enshrined in the internet for the foreseeable future. The internet does not forget things, or notorious people. No matter how short a season their fame lasted. This has become an invisible, but permanent, attachment stapled to every job application and cover letter he ever submits again in this field. Will some employers choose to overlook this transgression? Hopefully, for him. But the assertion that he will quietly slip back into safe cozy anonymity, where the internet is concerned, is simply ignorant.

destinyland writes "Dr. Jane McGonigal of the RAND Corporation's Institute for the Future has created a game described as 'a crash course in changing the world.' Developed for the World Bank's 'capacity development' branch, EVOKE has already gathered more than 10,000 potential solutions from participants, including executives from Procter & Gamble and Kraft. '[Dr. McGonigal] takes threats to human existence — global food shortage, fuel wars, pandemic, refugee crisis, and upended democracy — and asks the gaming public to collaborate on how to avoid these all too possible futures.' And by completing its 10 missions, you too can become a World Bank Institute certified EVOKE social innovator. (The game designer's web site lays out her ambitious philosophy. 'Reality is broken,' but 'game designers can fix it.')"

So.. following your logic, if you knew of one person you wish to keep ignorant of your whereabouts and personal information, from no matter how long ago, you'd become a recluse for the rest of your life and cut off all contact with friends and family. Got it.

Neither the AP nor Reuters is a consolidation. They are wire services, making it possible for news and art to be distributed to papers far and wide who pay for their services. They actually do more to support a greater multitude of newsrooms that can rely on their service for world news while remaining local to their communities to report their regional and local stories.

I disagree completely. I think people will absolutely pay for news--but opinion is, as said upwards of here, worth exactly crap in terms of monetary value. And so little of newsreporting today has even the PRETENSE of objectivity and professional integrity that nobody is interested in paying for it. Why pay for bloggers? Blogs are free and free for a reason.

This is why the Wall Street Journal's readership is actually going UP while their competitors are losing money right and left. The WSJ has actual reporting going on, which is thorough, professionally edited and mostly free from bias and agenda. And they do a good job of keeping their news pages and opinion pages distinct from each other, unlike the Times and most of the now-dying newspaper industry.

Journalism used to be a craft, one that involved not only finding out what happened but reporting what happened objectively, leaving it to the reader to make up his or her own mind about what the story really means. Nowadays ersatz "journalists" think it's ok to be social crusaders, and objectivity is laughed off as though it were obsolete and unreasonable. (I graduated one of the nation's top journalism schools, and saw this firsthand.) This mindset is what has the newsroom in the grip of death.